Roger Williams, founder of Providence, Rhode Island was born
in London, England about 1603. This is an estimated date as the
parish records of St. Sepulchre's Church where he was christened
were destroyed in the Great London Fire in 1666. He was one of
the four children of James Williams, merchant tailor, and his
wife Alice, the daughter of Robert and Catherine (Stokes) Pemberton
of St. Albans, Hertfordshire, England. Roger grew up in the old
Holborn section of London, near the great Smithfield plain, where
fairs were held and religious dissenters were burned at the stake.

Little is known of the early history of Roger Williams except
that he attracted the attention of Sir Edward Coke, Chief Justice
of the King's Bench, by his skill in taking down shorthand sermons
and long speeches. Years later Mrs. Sadler (daughter of Sir Edward
Coke) appended the following note to one of Roger Williams' letters
to herself. "This Roger Williams, when he was a youth, would
in a short hand take sermons and speeches in the Star Chamber,
and presented them to my dear father. He, seeing so hopeful a
youth, took such liking to him that he sent him into Sutton's
Hospital," etc. He was sent by the great lawyer to Sutton
Hospital in 1621, now known as the Charterhouse School. According
to the school's custom with capable students, he received a modest
allowance which enabled him to further his education at Pembroke
Hall in Cambridge University, where he received the degree of
A.B. in 1627. He mastered Latin, Greek, Hebrew, French, and Dutch
languages.

He took orders in the Church of England and in 1629 accepted
the post of chaplain to Sir William Masham at his manor house
at Otes in Essex. His courtship of Jane Whalley was brought to
an abrupt termination by the disapproval of her aunt, Lady Barrington.
Stung by the rejection, the young clergyman became ill of fever
and was nursed back to health by Mary Barnard, a member of Lady
Masham's household. She is believed to have been the daughter
of the Rev. Richard Barnard in Nottinghamshire. Rogers Williams
and Mary Barnard were married at High Laver Church in Essex on
December 15 1629.

On December 1, 1630, he and his wife boarded the ship Lyon
sailing for New England. After fifty-seven days of a storm-wracked
voyage, they anchored off Nantasket on February 3, 1631 and arrived
in Boston on the 5th. His arrival in America was duly noted by
the MA Bay Colony Governor, John Winthrop, in his carefully kept
diary. Winthrop described Williams as a "godly minister"
and it is certain the young clergyman was welcome in the new
colony in Boston. The young minister's intellect and position
were perfectly combined to attract attention in the Puritan community.
Even his most bitter critics in later years openly acknowledged
their affection and respect for him as an individual. Two months
later he was called as minister to Salem, having refused to join
with the congregation at Boston. The startled Boston elders were
told he would not serve a congregation that recognized the Church
of England. Roger Williams had become a separatist. This enraged
the Boston magistrates and pressure by them on the Salem authorities
caused him to leave there in late summer and go to Plymouth.
Here he was made welcome by the Separatist Pilgrims and was admitted
as a member of the church. He remained with them for two years.
During his stay, Williams made the most of his contact with the
natives of the region. His bold respect for the Indians' dignity
as men and his willingness to deal with them on a basis of equality
won their lasting friendship.

Although the Pilgrims were more tolerant than the Boston Puritans,
they found some of Roger Williams' thinking too advanced for
them. Williams returned to Salem in 1633. He was soon in difficulties
with the MA Bay authorities for publicly proclaiming that their
charter was invalid, since the king had no right to give away
lands belonging to the Indians. He also denounced them for forcing
religious uniformity upon the colonists. He believed in what
he called "soul-liberty", which meant that every man
had the complete right to enjoy freedom of opinion on the subject
of religion. In 1635 he was ordered by the General Court to be
banished from Massachusetts and threatened with deportation to
England if he did not renounce his convictions. "Whereas
Mr. Roger Williams, one of the Elders of the church of Salem,
hath broached and divulged new and dangerous opinions against
the authority of magistrates, as also written letters of defamation,
both of the magistrates and churches here, and that before any
conviction, and yet maintaineth the same without any retraction;
it is, therefore, ordered that the said Mr. Williams shall depart
out of this jurisdiction within six weeks now next ensuing,"
etc. He received permission to remain till spring, but the Court
hearing that he would not refrain from uttering his opinions
and that many people went to his house, "taken with an apprehension
of his Godliness," and that he was preparing to form a plantation
about Narragansett Bay: resolved to send him to England. Warned
by John Winthrop, he hastily bade his wife and baby daughters
goodbye and sought santuary with his Indian friends in the Narragansett
country. A messenger was sent to Salem to apprehend him, but
when the officers "came to his house, they found he had
gone three days before, but whither they could not learn."
He wrote, thirty-five years after his banishment, "I was
sorely tossed for one fourteen weeks in a bitter winter season,
not knowing what bed or bread did mean."

Roger Williams was warmly received by Massasoit and Canonicus,
chiefs of Indian tribes, the former of whom gave him a tract
of land on the Seekonk river. He commenced to plant, when he
was advised by Governor Winslow that he was within the limits
of Plymouth Colony. He accordingly embarked in the spring or
early summer, with five companions, landed at Slate Rock (as
since called) to exchange greetings with the Indians, and then
pursued his way again by boat to the site of his new settlement
on the Moshassuck River, which for the many "Providences
of the Most Holy and Only Wise, I called Providence." No
one was refused admittance because of his religious convictions
or practice. He says of this purchase, "I spared no cost
towards them in tokens and presents to Canonicus and all his,
many years before I came in person to the Narragansett; and when
I came I was welcome to the old prince Canonicus, who was most
shy of all English to his last breath." He founded Rhode
Island in the form of a pure democracy, where the will of the
majority should govern the state. It became a haven for Quakers,
Jews and others fleeing from persecution. In 1639 Roger Williams
joined the Baptist faith and founded the first Baptist church
in America. However, within a few months he withdrew from this
group and became a "Seeker".

This same year his mediation at the request of MA prevented
a coalition of the Pequots with the Narragansetts and Mohegans.
He wrote of this service in later years: "Three days and
nights my business forced me to lodge and mix with the bloody
Pequot ambassadors, whose hands and arms methought reeked with
the blood of my countrymen murdered and massacred by them on
Connecticut River."

In 1643 he went to England to obtain a charter to unite Providence
with the settlements of Warwick, Newport and Portsmouth, which
were coveted by MA Bay, Plymouth and CT. On the voyage wrote
his Key to the Indian Languages. In his dedication he says, "A
little key may open a box where lies a bunch of keys." The
charter he obtained proved to be very important as it was indisputable
for the next 20 years. Indian troubles continued to increase
in the colonies and Roger Williams was called upon to mediate
these difficulties. He had established a trading post near Wickford,
which he operated very successfully, living there for long periods
at a time, while still maintaining his homestead in Providence.

In 1651 it was necessary for him to return to England to confirm
the charter of 1644. He sold the trading post to finance the
voyage. While in London, he published Experiments of Spiritual
Life, and Health and their Preservation, which he dedicated :
"To the truly honorable the Lady Vane." He says of
this work that he wrote it "in the thickest of the naked
Indians of America, in their very wild houses and by their barbarous
fires."

He wrote to his wife while abroad. "My dearest love and
companion in this vale of tears," congratulating himself
and her upon her recovery from recent illness: "I send thee,
though in winter, a handful of flowers made up in a little posy,
for thy dear selft and our dear children to look and smell on,
when I, as grass of the field, shall be gone and withered."
1 Apr 1653 - He wrote a letter to his friends and neighbors in
Providence and Warwick, from Sir Henry Vane's at Belleau in Lincolnshire,
relative to the confirmation of the charter accured by Vane's
mediation, charging them to dwell in peace, etc., and in a postscript
adds: "My love to all my Indian friends."

At home in Providence after an absence of nearly 3 years,
he became President of the colony, which office he held from
1654 to 1658. Roger Williams was made Freeman in1655; served
as Commissioner in 1658, 1659 and 1661; Deputy in 1670, 1678,
1679 and 1680; and on the Town Council. 1675-76.

Despite all his efforts to avert it, war with the Indians
broke out in 1676. Known as King Philip's War, it was a tragedy
alike for white men and red. Providence had for years been spared
the arrow and the firebrand because of his presence there, but
finally, the city was threatened with destruction. Bravely, Roger
Williams went out, alone and unarmed, to met the invaders, but
for once his arguments failed. He was told that because he was
an honest man not a hair of his head would be harmed, but that
the city should be burned. Providence was burned on Mar 26 1676.

On May 6, 1682, he wrote Governor Bradstreet, calling himself
"old and weak and bruised (with rupture and colic) and lameness
on both my feet." He proceeds: "By my fireside I have
recollected the discourses, which (by many tedious journeys)
I have had with the scattered English at Narragansett before
the war and since. I have reduced them unto these twenty-two
heads (enclosed) which is near thirty sheets of my writing. I
would send them to the Narragansetts and others; ther is no controversy
in them, only an endeavour of a particular match of each poor
sinner to his maker." He asks advice as to printing it,
and alludes to news of Shaftsbury and Howard's beheading and
contrary news of their reprieve, etc. "But these are but
sublunaries, temporaries and trivials. Eternity, O Eternity,
is our business."

The precise date of his death is unknown, but it occurred
sometime between January 16 and March 16 1683. He was buried
in the orchard in the rear of his homestead lot. Many years later,
his remains were disinterred and placed in the tomb of a descendant
in the North Burial Ground. In 1936 they were sealed within a
bronze container and set into the base of the monument erected
to his memory on Prospect Terrace.

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